Some may know that EBSCO is now marketing the Christian Periodical Index. I was recently offered an opportunity to try CPI at Boston University. I won’t comment on the quality of the indexing here, but thought it helpful to identify the overlap titles that are indexed in other products we license (ATLA Religion Database, EBSCOhost Religion and Philosophy Collection, and Catholic Periodical and Literature Index.)

I gathered titles and issn from the American Theological Library Association and EBSCO web sites to use for comparison. For consistency, I tried to use figures based on currently indexed titles. Both the ATLA Religion Database and the Catholic Periodical and Literature Index include titles that are not currently indexed. For these purposes, the ATLA Religion Database claims to index 506 titles, Catholic Periodical and Literature Index claims to index 181 titles, and EBSCO includes 308 titles.

CPI indexes 133 titles according to the list published on their web site. Of those titles, 50 (38%) titles are also indexed by one of the three indexes we already license and 83 (62%) titles are unique to Christian Periodical Index.

I was also interested to know how many CPI titles not indexed by the other three indexes are held by either Boston University or one of the other libraries in the Boston Theological Institute. BTI libraries hold 40 (30%) of the 83 titles unique to CPI.

Below is a list of unique Christian Periodical Index titles:

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Fred Stutzman over at Unit Structures talks about the “what’s next” problem in what he calls “ego-centric” social networks.

Of course, the problem with ego-centric networks lies in the fact network-reestablishment is the main chore. Talk to individuals joining Facebook today – what are they doing? They’re using inbox importers and searching to find their friends/ex-classmates/etc. It’s a game, it’s fun for a bit, but then (say it with me readers) “What’s next?” Yes, the what’s next moment occurs. This is not to say the network becomes useless: no, it’s very useful rolodex, and the newsfeeds introduce concepts of peripheral participation (or social surveillance), but the game is in essence over.

One of the big problems I see in trying to make the Library more “game-like” (see my earlier post) is sustaining interest, or avoiding the “what’s next” problem. Admittedly, this is a challenge not just for libraries, but for any game designer.

Amy Jo Kim, Creative Director of ShuffleBrain posted notes over at we-make-money-not-art about the “Putting the Fun in Functional: Applying Game Design to Mobile Services” session at last year’s Emerging Technology Conference in which she discusses five game mechanics that make the interactive experience more addictive:

1. Collecting: amassing and showing your stuff
2. Earning points: related but more sophisticated, its’ a very simple way to keep the interest alive.
3. Feedback but you have to use it creatively.
4. Exchanges are structured social interactions. They are the basic, primal form of social interaction. Social exchange can be very explicit or implicit (i.e. emergent)
5. Customization increases investment in the experience.

(Amy provides helpful examples of these five mechanics.)

One of the findings from the University of Rochester Study was that undergraduates want to be able to Customize the library’s web site to fit their own needs and preferences. Essentially they were describing a portal interface that allows one to Customize content in much the same way one is able to do with Google or Yahoo. While it would take a bit of effort, this could be accomplished in most libraries. UofR also discovered that students wanted to “customize” the physical library. Students wanted to move furniture, for example, to suit their needs. Students also defined some areas in the library as quiet areas and others as more collaborative areas in which a conversation and collaboration were more common. The difficult part of allowing customization of physical space, however, is that it is shared space. One can’t guarantee that it would remain the same for the next time the student came to study.

Collecting seems more difficult for me to imagine incorporating into the Library player’s experience. Amy talks about collecting friends in MySpace or Facebook, or baseball cards, or any type of collectible in the physical world. While it is a game, we want the game to focus on information, not simply gimics. One might, however, imagine a student collecting citations, even better annotated citations. Bragging rights go to those with the most citations.

And of course Points might be awarded based, at least in part, on the number of annotated citations one accumulates. One might also receive Points by means of a reputation system, a little like E-bay or Amazon. Points would be awarded not just on quantity, but quality.

Contributing these annotated citations to the social network that might grow up around a Library would be a type of social Exchange. A Library might implement a tagging or commenting facility directly into the online catalog. Penn Tags is an interesting model. Penn has implemented a tagging system for the opac that allows library users to add their own tags. (http://tags.library.upenn.edu/) “If you want to create interesting social dynamics you have to allow users to exchange gifts. It’s a very powerful social exchange.” (Amy Jo Kim)

Designing the Library game to encourage addictive library use is an interesting challenge, very focused on the user experience. Focusing on game mechanics seems like a helpful way to approach the challenge.

I heard a report earlier this week about a lunch time conversation with students in which one of the students said that the BU Theology Library is the first library that he has been in that didn’t have a good place to sleep. Fran Silverman’s November 11 article in the New York Times, Much Loved, Now Much Used reminded me of that comment and how important the space is to our users, in some ways more so than the content….